How to Implement Absence Management: Our top 3 tips

Making sure that your business runs at optimal productivity is the key to growth and profit. But how can you be productive if your employees are not fully engaged? And how can they be fully engaged, if absenteeism has become an issue in your company? If absenteeism has become a problem for your company, then it is time to review your absence management process.

If your company has never had a formal absence management program, you may find it challenging at first to get buy-in from your staff. However, if done correctly, this type of program has the potential to more fully engage your employees and help boost productivity.

Here are our top three tips for getting started:

Start with communication

The first step towards implementing your absence management program is ensuring that everyone in the company is getting the same message. No matter how you choose to run your absence reporting (eg. Email, phone, text, etc.), employees need to know the proper procedure to follow if they cannot make it into work.

Get the message out through departmental meetings to introduce the new program. If, for example, there is a certain telephone number that you wish employees to call or text when they are going to be absent, then you can use the meeting as an opportunity to have everyone enter the number into their phone.

It is also very important that your managers understand what is expected of them when handling employee absence. This is especially important in the case of long term absences when they might be required to follow up with an employee or conduct return-to-work interviews.

Ensure proper data collection

It is important that your company collect all absence information and track any trends that may be occurring. This data will help your managers better understand health and safety issues within the company and help them make decisions on how to deal with absences.

Thorough data collection will also help you know where to make improvements in your absence management program.

Conduct regular reviews

Having sufficient data from your program will allow you to audit your procedures on a regular basis. It is important to monitor both the absence rate as well as compliance within the company. If you notice that some managers are having difficulty, it may be an indication that something needs to be tweaked or it may indicate that additional training is required.

If some managers or departments seem to be disengaged from the program, it could indicate that further communication is required. For example, an internal campaign about the program and why it is important may be needed.

Having an effective absence management program in place can help improve a company’s productivity quite significantly. While the process may seem straightforward, it can be time consuming and is often met initially with resistance. That’s why many companies that have successfully implemented such a program have done so with the assistance of a third party. At TeksMed, absence management is one of our areas of expertise. If you would like to consult with us regarding implementing your own program, contact us today.